


Carry Us Through the Night.

by fearless_seas



Series: We Were Made of Sunshine and Gold [10]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Anniversary, Christmas, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt, Established Relationship, Fights, Holidays, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-23 19:25:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17086286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: Charles always had two Christmases; one with his family and one a few days before that with Pierre. And it's a secret part of him only wants one...





	Carry Us Through the Night.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eth0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eth0/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy! I have been so busy this month with school I had to write this whole thing in about six hours, haha. Really hope you enjoy it? Happy holidays!

     Charles always had two Christmases. Two holidays. Two trips.

     The one with his family always occurred second. Christmas trees, gifts and ginger bread. The comfort of company, of warmth. Maman’s laugh or the ever present memory of Papa lingering around her shoulders.  It’s Arthur tossing wrapping paper at his head or the fireplace managing a frenentic fury that flickered and waned over the walls . The feeling of… home. And Maman never fails to ask:

     “Qu'as-tu fait ce mois-ci?”, _what have you done this month?_

He thinks but does not say: _Spending my first christmas._

     Charles always smiles  cheerfully , “Rien d’important,” before kissing her forehead and stepping  quietly out of the room . The grin frays and he can sense the heavy sadness beginning to weight at the corners of his eyes. He climbs the stairs and he can sense the ghost of their fingertips brushing the small of his back. At his bedroom, he settles on the edge of his mattress and he calls them. It rings several times before the line picks up. And it’s silent for a long moment with only their soft breathing to calm his frantic soul.

     That and nothing else.

 

____________________________

 

     Charles always had two Christmases. Two holidays. Two trips.

     The second one with his family.

     And then the first one with Pierre.

     It’d occur before the both of them return home for a few days and it’s the last time they see each other for a while. It’s at the end of long seasons and shotty months of privacy; long deserved, long awaited.  It’s delighted with the scent of promise, curled in arms and intertwined fingers as the soft feel of breathing warms the back of his neck . A different type of home. He’s never enjoyed being away from Pierre.  It makes him miss when the early shine of the sun forces a wide grin between his cold, red lips, painting it wider than ever before .

     Charles always allows Pierre to plan it. He has never been one to become  overly excited or elated during the holiday season. He’d sigh at the same jingle of music in the shops, groan at the lines at city centers. Always, he’d insist to his family, to his friends, “You don’t have to get me anything, don’t worry.” But they never listened (and a secret piece of him always appreciated that).

     Pierre was the opposite. He would drag him everywhere with curved fingers tugging on the holes of his sweater sleeve. “Don’t you  just love that?”, he respires with an arm cradling his shoulders. There is a calm serenity curling his lips below a weather bitten nose. He’s gesturing to…  absolutely nothing at all.

     Charles raises a brow, “What exactly?”

     Pierre inhales  slowly , “Everything.”  There is a twinkle of colored lights on the buildings and snow drifts angelic onto his long eyelashes . When Charles peels his eyes to Pierre, he is gazing towards him with a admirable smile on his visage.

     A hand lands on his hip, “What are you looking at?"

     Pierre reaches for his wrist, tugging him backwards so he can loop their gloves fingers together . He presses a short kiss to the end of his nose. “You,  obviously ,” he wrinkles his nose before pulling Charles’s hat over his eyes.

     Pushing the brim up, he sticks his tongue out at him as they continue walking. A few minutes later, he questions, “So, where are we going this year?”

     Pierre’s eyes widen with a flinch of excitement. He has his arm hooked at his elbow and is dragging him along to places as he usually does. “It’s a surprise!”

     Six years of surprises.

     Six Christmases.

     Well, actually twelve.

     This time it’s a cabin.  A cozy thing tucked from civilization, sheltered from the winter only by the thick wood and a fireplace that exhausted all heat of the atmosphere .  Pierre orates the entire hour and eight minute drive while pointing out landmarks with a shiver of thrill in his voice . To encourage him, Charles nods along, sits with his feet propped on the dashboard and listens to him.  Snowflakes drift  delicately against the window as he trains his attention to the expanse of road . The high mountain air causes his breath to hitch in the back of his throat. When they pull into the driveway, it’s twilight and the snow is above both their heads.

     “Well,” Pierre stretches with a groan, “Here we are.” He slugs Charles’s shoulder to push him towards his door, “Let’s get inside.” The moment he steps out of the car, the rush of bitter, frozen air nips at his open neck. He trembles into the lapel of his collar. A trek of footsteps approaching from behind make him jump as an arms tugs his shoulders nearer. “Do you like it?”, Pierre’s breath catches in the air, his touch light as a feather.  Charles steals a moment to admire the one story nestled among the grove of tall trees as though it  was hidden from sight for decades . “You said you wanted something secluded,” Pierre shrugs, “If you don’t like it we can--”

     “It’s perfect,” Charles cuts him off, placing a fingers to his lips. He folds a hand to the back of his neck, tugging his face downwards to his. “Thank you,” he murmurs and at the warmth of his lyrics a relief of color washes into Pierre’s features.

     “Maybe next year we won’t need two holidays,” Pierre mutters.

     To distract him, Charles cuts him off with a kiss.  It was something in the darkness, the bare view of the swirling stars that made the radiance of his smile shatter the illusion of shadow .  No matter what, there'd always be breathlessness in their kisses as though they had take what they needed whenever they could…

     A few minutes later, they drop their bags by the door. Charles takes a minute to lift them to the bedroom as Pierre triggers a fire to lighten the hearth. When he returns, the shadow of flames lick their way over the floorboards and he’s pushed a couch in front of the place. Pierre dusts off his hands, flopping onto the sofa with a loose moan. A storm growls over the outer walls and Charles falls in beside him, kicking his legs into his lap.

     Pierre shifts his gaze towards him, “How do you like it?”

     “It’s nice,” Charles nods, “Freezing in the bedroom though!”

     “Thought so,” Pierre shrugs, laying over to place his head onto his chest. The quietude battles the resounding crackle of the dim fire. A sigh pierces the empty air, Charles yanks him closer when he places a hand behind his back. “This is what we needed,” Pierre mouths into the arch of his throat.

     “What exactly?”

     “Nothing but this. We don’t need anything but this.”

     “Depends on what “this” means,” Charles narrows his eyes.

     Pierre  suddenly lifts his head, his hand resting on the cusp of his hip. The shimmer of the blaze ignites every fleck of ocean hue in his eyes and to everything that made up the never night. There is a sobering quality to his features that is not seen often. He brushes the stray hairs off of Charles’s forehead. “You,” he breathes it onto his open lips before leaning forward.

     But there’s some hidden desire written at the crease of his mouth that he did not allow to slip past his tongue. Despite the frigid temperature, his hands are warm, sparked with trust. He reaches beneath his sweater, lifting it above his head. Charles is immediately hit by the cold fought only by the spotty heat of the fireplace.  Nothing feels closer to home than when his lover's lips travel the expanse of his neck or when his nails dig bittersweet into the flesh of his lower back . 

     Charles traces his fingertips over little birthmarks peppered like constellations on his shoulders. His muscles relax when he realizes that he didn’t sense the cold any longer. The way he holds him reassures him know that things haven’t changed.  He still tastes as he did the first time they kissed; he still feels the same under his touch as when they spent their first night together .  In this ever changing world, that was all he  really needed: to return to the same thing he’d known and know it would never alter .

     (And Pierre stuffs his mouth with little poems, lines breathing past his lips with every gentle moan or delicate caress .)

_When I see you, when I’m with you, it is home. Perhaps this is why, I do not wish to lose you; because I do not want to forget the sensation of being home._

     In the morning, as usual, Charles awakes first. He pushes Pierre further onto the couch and tugs the blanket to his chin before restarting the fire. Sun shifts through the thin windows, sprinkling a pattern of stream into the room. He makes a simple breakfast for two, eats, and by the time that he  is done , Pierre is sitting up in the living room.

     “Morning,” Charles cheers. Pierre glances to him with a dazed smile as he enters the room. He shoves a mug of coffee into his hands and Pierre leans back to enjoy it. His hair is messy and frayed about his head as his eyes squint at the light.

     “Thank you,” he retorts in a sing-song tone. His eyes drift towards the window, “Has it stopped snowing?”

     “Yep.”

     “Want to go for a walk?”, but he has already slid to his feet off of the couch.

     Charles crosses his arms, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

     Pierre freezes and his gaze flickers in thought. “To… say good morning?”

     “Or maybe…” he pokes him in the side, “To eat? To dress?”

     “Oh,” Pierre’s cheeks redden, “Of course.”

     Charles playfully boots his behind with his hand, “Well then, get moving.”

     They always chose to have their first Christmas around the 21st every year since it began. That was the day it started.

     Pierre tightens his scarf over his neck, shutting the door behind them without locking it. The earth dresses up in white following a long storm. Flakes that scatter and sprinkle across the edge of the tree tops, across the tread of his boots. The weather of the night before had come down  softly in a manner that reminds you of finer seasonal things.

     “You know what I want?”, Pierre inquires. His voice shatters the illusion of silence.

     Charles reaches for his arm to tug him along, “What do you want?”

     He grins, “Hot chocolate.”

     The weather immortalizes warm fireplaces and Maman’s gingerbread.

     The bank crunches below his tread, “We can make some when we get back.”

     The thought of it makes him colder and he rubs his gloves together. Pierre blows out a puff of hot air and shifts his eyes upwards towards the pale gray sky.  Charles wishes the snowflakes would arrive once again and soak across Pierre’s lashes to bring out the beauty of his eyes . Slivers of sunlight pierce through the weakening shelter of clouds.

     “Are we going anywhere?”, Charles questions.

     Pierre pauses with a short shrug, “Nowhere in particular. There might be a clearing ahead.”  There is a beauty in the absence of life and every flutter from bird wings or deer track were the only life besides themselves .

     “Are you cold?”, Pierre reaches over, turning his attention and grabbing for his hands. He presses a light kiss to the corner of his mouth, shifting a hand to the small of his back to urge him along. Charles remembers when he kissed him last night with fingers dipping past his jeans. More important, he recalls the way he said _you_. As if it were the most important thing and must be said with care.

     “No, not really,” he lies. Pierre raises a brow. “Okay, maybe a little,” he admits shyly.

     On the way back it comes up again as he knew it would. “I was thinking, Charlot…  maybe next year we could spend Christmas with family instead.”

     “What do you mean?”

     Pierre’s shoulders narrow, he begins chewing on his inner cheek in a nervous manner. “That maybe we don’t have to be private anymore--at least not around family. Mine always get suspicious why I disappear for a few days, yeah?” It takes a minute for this to register in Charles’s brain and in that long reticence, Pierre shuts it down. “Nevermind, it’s stupid.”

     Charles elbows him, “It’s not stupid.” He squeezes his hand, “But we’ve talked about this before. We are too high-profile to…”

     “Tell people,” Pierre sighs and there is a dismal drop to his cheerful tone from before. “But it’s been almost five years. It wouldn’t hurt at least to--”

     “Pierre.”

     “You said it the year before, the year before that…”

     “I know but I… I can’t.”

     Pierre’s grip loosens, he shuttles his hands into his pockets. “It’s not…”

     Charles shoots him a look, “It’s not what?” But it’s there. Resting right on the tip of his tongue gasping to reach the frigid air. He’s always been one to speak his mind but he averts his near guilty gaze. Charles softens his tone, grabbing at his elbow, forcing him to stop in his tracks. “Pierre, it’s not what?” But he doesn’t look to him at all. “Please,” Charles cups his jaw, shifting his eyes towards his. There is a quick flash of trust in them.

     “Me,” he whispers, “Is it me?”

     The question contains a delicate sense of vulnerability to it. A certain bravery that sews together the very fabric of letters.

     “You know it’s not, right?”, Charles sounds concerned, “You do not that right?”

     Pierre hesitates before replying, “Right.”

     The rest of the walk back is wordless. Hollow, soundless vacancy. And it felt more powerful than a thousand phrases or a million songs. What was worse than anything was that thought pushing to the front of his mind:  _if only I could speak to Jules or Papa_ .

     They always knew how to make all things right again.

     Pierre likes make everything comfortable. That’s why he sets up little fairy lights above the fireplace of the living room. He holds the ladder and Charles climbs up to nail them into the fixture. The sun is setting past the forest and they have to flick on the lights to enjoy any source of light. Dinner is small, pleasant and eyes linger over a table decked with a few candles. His cheek bones, his jaw, all flutter in the wane of the flame. So he gets a little poetic and says:

     “You know, if I were around you every day, I wouldn’t need the sky,” Charles rests his chin on his open palm.

     “Why?”, Pierre indulges him with an amused smirk.

     “Because I could just look into your eyes.”

     For a second, it takes him off guard and his eyes brim with an insurmountable amount of pride. “I thought I  was supposed to be the poet of the both of us,” he attempts to bite down on his wide grin. “Oh!”, he shouts, “I got you something. For our… anniversary and Christmas.  I know you said you didn’t want anything but…” He reaches into his coat pocket, tugging out a little leather box and sliding it against the table . Charles breath catches in his throat. “Don’t worry,” Pierre chides, “It’s not a ring. Not yet anyways.” He greets his open palm halfway across the table and tugs it towards himself. “Consider it…”, out of it comes a silver keychain, “A reminder.” Charles moves it around in his hands. It twinkles against the light and he uses his nail to trace the engraving.

_Toujours avec toi, Charlot_.

     A small, modest beam twists at the corner of his mouth, “Thank you, it’s beautiful. Small too, means I can carry it around with me.” Pierre nods proudly, “I got you something too.”

     “Oh?”

     When he opens it, the flinch of joy molds into confusion, “But there is two in here?”

     “I lost it,” Pierre shrugs, rubbing a hand over the vacant area.

     “I got you a new one,” he slips him a little paper box.

     When he opens it, the flinch of joy is replaced some by confusion, “But there is two in here?”

     “One to replace the other and the other… because I know you’ll end up losing that one too,” he chuckles.

     “You know me so well!”, Pierre slips it over his wrist where it used to be.

     “Happy anniversary.”

     “I love it,” he grins, his expression angelic with care, “Almost as much as I love you.”

     “You _better_ not love a bracelet over me.”

     “Hm, we’ll have to see,” he teases.

     There’s music to his laughter, a moving beauty to his smile. It reminds him of how it began with his mouth against his and fingers carving at the hair in the back of his neck. How he asked him how it must have been: for the first people to ever feel like this. Before the word _love_ had ever been conceived. To know that the rest of the word was still catching up their feeling. Little moments, little memories, little things--they never seemed quite so little when it was the two of them.

     They leave their dishes by the sink and settle before the fire by piling on a few more blankets. There is simple joy to the slow inhale of his breath; the sparks of life causing a slow heart to beat forward.

   Allowing himself, he whispers, “Come here.” He tugs his glass out of his cradled hands, placing it on the lamp side table. Pierre rolls  slowly underneath him. It’s his expression that night as Charles tugs off his clothing and settles between his bare legs. But neither of them speak a syllable, besides:  _ are you okay? _ Everytime, he nods  quickly in confirmation. Charles guides himself towards him and it’s very sudden when he  is stopped by a hand over his ribs.

     “Wait, Charles…”

     “Do you want me to stop?”

     “No,” Pierre swallows, his skin appearing golden in hue as it flushes and glow, “You can keep going.” Charles hesitates until Pierre snatches for his wrist, setting it onto his hip. He tugs him lower until his lips brush the shell of his ear and a murmur escapes his lips, “I love you.”

     “I love you, too.”

     And they both do. So very much.

     There is privacy in how each arching moan arrives past heavy, exquisite lips. He paints them over his shoulders like little stars. Every breath says without words:

     “I love you.”

     His fingertips trail over, up and across the ladder of his spine. His hips feeling like fragile little things beneath the muscle of his fingers. It is this, the both of them and nothing else, that makes everything timeless and extraordinary. He slept with his limbs tangled around him and for only this moment, _I was the moon and you were the sun_ , in arms wide enough to hold galaxies… _and yet he chose me over everything else_.

     He wondered if there anything more important than this night under a snowy sky in a dark forest; or how he felt falling asleep in front of the fire with a soft pulse to lull his restless mind to sleep .

     The last day of their Christmas together was always the most difficult. The foreboding knowledge that in a few hours they would be apart once more. When they have to take down the decorations and say goodbye to their few day retreat. Once again consigned to a secret.  Oddly , Pierre is quiet the drive to the airport. Enough so, Charles has to interrogate:

     “Are you okay?”

     Pierre's jaw tightens, his hands hover over the steering wheel. “Fine, what makes you say I am not?”

     “You’re being…”, he rubs his fingers together, “Quiet.”

     “Just thinking.”

     Pierre never hesitated to voice his thoughts before.

     “About what?"

     He squirms uncomfortably before answering, “That maybe next year… you’d feel more comfortable about it all.”

     Charles swallows, “About what?”

     “Coming home with me for the holidays.”

     A sigh leaves him, “We already talked about this.”

     “I know,” he changes lanes, “But we can’t do this forever.”

     “My family won’t… they won’t understand,”  nervously , he shuffles his feet.

     “Oh,” Pierre mutters  quietly , “So it  really was about me… wasn’t it?”

     But he’ll never say it. Charles will never admit it to him and witness it shatter the hidden hope behind his eyes.

     “It’s not about you, Pierre,” he stiffens, his attention trailing to the frosty window beside him, “You’re just not…”

     “What they want.”

     “What they’re expecting,” he clarifies quickly. He keeps his gaze far off, "When I bring someone home... you're not what they imagine." _What do they imagine then?_

     A spiking tension lines the air between them like a wall. A bubble of glass that’d shatter with a tap of a lazy fingertip to the surface. But eventually, it must shatter. And it does.

     “Am I enough?”, quieter than snowflakes tumbling onto the pavement, “For you. Am I enough?”

     Charles doesn’t mean to hesitate. But he did. Opening then closing his mouth quite unsure of what to say. Because Pierre is, he always has been enough for him. But the words clump in the back of his throat. He has a place between his silences, between and within them, a deep but frigid bit of wilderness. Instead of speaking, he rests his forehead against the glass and shuts his eyes.

 _Of course, you’re enough for me_.

     At the airport, Pierre helps with his bags before giving him a tight grimace and stepping off of the curb back into his car. Charles craves to shout after him before he pulls away:  _you’re enough_. But his mouth locks and everything after that reminds him of who he'd just let go…

 

____________________________

 

     “Charles?”, he didn’t hanker it the first time it  was spoken . “Charles, cheri?”, a hand slides over his shoulder. He jumps  slightly at the interaction but turns his attention. His mother stands beside him with a concerned wrinkle in her brow. It’s Christmas eve, two days later and a part of him misses the snow. None more so than he misses Pierre, of course.

     He manages a beam, “Oui, Maman?”

     “Quesque tu faites?”, she settles beside him at the kitchen counter, brushing the dark hair out of his eyes with the swipe of her palm .

     “Rien,” _nothing_ , he removes his gaze farther, resting his chin on his palm.

     “Allons,” she urges, “les mamans savants toujours. Avais-tu eu une dispute avec quelqu'un?”

      _How did she know?_

     “Peut etre,” he rubs a hand over his face, “J’ai fait une erreur.”

     “Comment?”

     “J'ai dit quelque chose que je n'aurais pas dû.”

    _I said something I shouldn't have._ And he regrets it nearly every moment since.

     “Appelle le,” she squeezes his hand. _Call him_. 

     Charles freezes, turning his attention to the wise twinkle of clarity at the edge of his mother’s eye. “Comment--”

     She winks amusedly, tapping the side of her temple, “les mamans savents toujours. Appelle le, il t'aime trop pour rester en colère.”

      _Mothers always know_. 

     Relief echoes in the hollow ribs of his chest, “Merci, Maman.”

     He waits instead until the late evening. It’s in front of a fireplace, the one that reminds him of the cabin where he spent his three days with Pierre. It’s the usual, Lorenzo slugging Arthur in the shoulders as they did when they were children. It’s the influx of close guests that continue to arrive in a stream through the front door. Gingerbread and wrapping paper… the tree in the corner of the entry and slippery eggnog. But he waits eagerly until he is asked:

     “Qu'as-tu fait ce mois-ci?”, _what have you done this month?_

_Spending my first christmas._

     As he always does, Charles smiles softly, “Rien d’important.” He passes across the room to kiss her forehead before stepping quietly out of the room. It’s traveling up the stairs and sensing their hands across his form or his words echoing about in his skull. He settles on the edge of his mattress and… he calls them. It rings several times before the line picks up. And it’s silent for a long moment with only their soft breathing to calm his frantic soul…

     That and nothing else.

     “ _Hey there_ ,” Pierre chuckles softly.

     Charles blurts it out before anything else, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything. I didn’t mean what I said before at all; I didn’t--”

     “ _Calm down_ ,” Pierre reassures, “ _Listen, it’s alright._ ”

     “Are you sure?”

     “ _Of course._ ”

 _Of course_.

     Relief floods him. “How have your holidays been?”, Charles asks and he does this because he knows he can get him to talk  endlessly . That’s what Pierre does. And that’s all he wants. The lull and sway of his vocals to calm him into a rest.

     When he’s done explaining, he inquires only, “ _What about you? Was there something else you needed?_ ”

     “Actually…”, Charles flops onto his back on top of the bed, “I have to ask you something."

     “ _Yes?_ ”, Pierre anticipates. He is always one to get excited about little things. Enjoy each minute as if he never knew which were to be his last.

     And what he’s been preparing to say for years steps past his teeth. “Would you like to come to Monaco for Christmas next year?”

     There is a silence. “ _Are you--_ ”

     “Sure? Yes.”

     “ _Charles?_ ”, his expression is so soft on the other line. An elation unsubmitting into words.

     “Pierre?”

     “ _I want nothing more in the world than to spend Christmas at your home._ ”

 _Things always work out with you_.

 _Because everything is simple_.

     Charles forces himself off of the phone and back downstairs. Maman passes him a look from the corner of the room as he enters. _Did you do it?_ She seems to wonder wordlessly with gaze alone. He nods, passing across the expanse towards her.

     “How would you like someone more for Christmas next year?”

 _Dark as you are, you will always find enough light to adore him to pieces; with all of your pieces_. _With him in your life you can conquer anything; the stars are within your grasp. So you whisper to your night:_

      _“Show me everything.”_

 _And the galaxy of planets undress themselves to your sight_.

_And it was that idea that nothing was better than the thousands of stars that pepper his shoulders…_

_That this sip of eternity, of constellations, of stars and orbits would always, no matter what, taste this good._

     This idea alone carried him through the night.

     Charles always had two Christmases. Two holidays. Two trips.

     So, he decides having only one isn’t bad at all.

     Because it's with someone he loves.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are especially appreciated! Creators getting comments on free content for consumers is really appreciated! Thankful for kudos too! My Tumblr is @pieregasly, happy holidays everyone.


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